11/12 – Seth Godin – An end of radio – Radio is about to fall off a cliff, like the newspapers already have. Spotify, podcasts, and free downloads on a cell phone will soon obliterate commercial radio, Mr. Godin expects. That will be bad for radio but open up bright, unknown possibilities for everyone else.

10/23 – tymshft – The first telephone book wasn’t a book…and didn’t have any telephone numbers – John Bredehoft explains the first printed telephone directory in 1878 took up one page, since there were only 11 subscribers. The listing didn’t have numbers since you asked the operator to connect you with a specific person. So that everyone gets the full picture, John reminds us that all the phones were attached to the wall by a cord.

11/4 – Daniel Burrus, posting on LinkedIn – The Internet of Things Far Bigger Than Anyone Realizes – Part 2 – The IoT will transform entire industries. Just a few, very little ideas: how about sensors that can monitor flow in a pipeline, monitor corrosion, and report when a leak is about to happen? The pipeline company spending a reported $20 million to remediate a leak in Tioga, North Dakota might be interested in buying a bunch of those sensors. How about getting your car to the repair shop at a convenient time instead of the day your air conditioning stops?

11/7 – Road and Track – Why the self-serve American junkyard is dying – Three of the main reasons: It’s easy to store junked cars five high on storage racks. Can’t let the general public wander around pulling entire cars off the stack, so the staff pull parts.

Second, its easy to keep a computerized inventory of parts on the lot and where they are so the staff can find them quickly.

Finally, the ‘net provides a ready market for all those parts you now have inventoried.